


Though the stars walk backward

by lilith_morgana



Series: Swtor: Erviel Boldry [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-08-31 01:38:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8558182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: (Mostly) chronological ficlets, drabbles and one-shots about Aric Jorgan and Erviel Boldry, set after the class story and beyond.





	1. Dance me to the end of love

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine this is set somewhere post-Corellia, pre-Rishi and all that other depressing stuff. Just a little fluff to send this fic collection off into the future and KoTFE/KoTET-land.

  
  
The room’s been lit by countless of small lights, whole strings and splashes of them climbing the walls and circling the dozen bars that are spread out across the floor. It looks like something out of an old vid about ancient human rituals - or a really fancy celebration thrown by the high and mighty in the ranks of the Republic army, which is exactly what it _is_.    
  
“Good planning,” Erviel says, approaching one of the bars where a kind soul has already prepared a large plate of appetizers and an enormous tray of full wine glasses. “Nobody has to walk more than a few feet for refills.”  
  
Aric shots her a quick grin. “They know their target audience.”  
  
Corellia has not yet faded in their minds - far from it - and the path ahead is full of similar tasks but it had been, in Garza’s words, _of utmost importance - in fact, consider it an order_ that Erviel and her team attended this formal gathering on Coruscant. With so much of their work having to remain a secret to the general public, this is a form of recognition, a reward. If you are easily swayed by the opportunity to put on formal wear and waddle around in the same halls as Supreme Chancellor Saresh and her ilk, that is.  
  
“You’ve been to many of these?” She stuffs a slice of bread into her mouth and downs it with a mouthful of wine. Food. Actual proper _food_ that isn’t rations - food with spices and texture and _taste_ , exploding in her mouth. It feels almost too good to be true and whatever happens tonight, she decides this alone makes it worth it.  
  
“Can’t say that I have.”  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
Her gaze travels over Aric where he stands, inspecting the selection of food with his arms folded across his chest. There’s a jolt of warmth along her spine at the sight of his broad shoulders in the military suit he has put on for tonight’s adventures: dark blue, sleek, smart lines and a surprisingly perfect fit. She wonders if he’s gone and had it tailor-made behind her back while she had been eye-rolling at the very thought of having to endure a whole evening in her best formal wear. Looking up again, he catches her smiling at him and arches his brow.  
  
“What?”  
  
Erviel takes another mouthful of wine. “Just admiring the view.”  
  
Something passes over his face, amusement mixed with the same kind of impatience that has already begun to stir in her, as well. Too much duty lately, not nearly enough R &R and all these _crowds_ standing between the two of them and what should have been their honeymoon. That notion alone - he’s her blasted _husband_ , her life mate, her partner in crime for the rest of their lives - flutters madly in her chest whenever she allows it. For someone who has always disregarded the idea of family life, Erviel sure is keen on it now that it’s here. With _him_.  
  
“I thought that was my job,” Aric says now, moving closer to her with a glass in his hand. Then, lowering his voice until it’s little more than a hoarse growl. “You look incredibly distracting, by the way.”  
  
“Good.” She runs a hand from the waist down, feeling the silly fabric against her palm. No matter how well it fits or how attractive it looks on others it feels like she will never get used to non-functional clothes again in her life. Even the casual clothes she wears on the ship are somewhat practical. “Then it serves at least one proper purpose. Apart from being silly and impractical.”  
  
His gaze lingers as she motions herself to grab more food and a refill of her glass. The wine soars comfortably in her body already, breathing nice change and welcome _relief_ from battle and strategy. If someone wakes her up in the middle of the night at this point, she’s ready to leap out of bed, grab her assault cannon and run, prepared to fight the weakened Empire to the death. That sort of vigilance does a number on your head, hardens your body in ways that no training had been able to prepare her for. It demands rest, frequent and generous rest. Barring that, it demands different kinds of outlets.  
  
They move slowly through the room for a while, greeting a few familiar faces and nodding politely towards strangers. Aric mutters the occasional observation and Erviel talks about the guests, the food, the music coming from a large band performing in the far end of the dance hall.  
  
“Do you dance?” she asks, suddenly, as the tune changes to something rather slow and soft-sounding and the wine has gone all the way to her head. There are so many things she still doesn’t even know about this man who is her husband and there’s a nervous little twist in her at that insight, one she’d much rather push away with physical contact, so many questions she’d like to ask when they have more time on their hands.  
  
Aric looks slightly taken aback at her inquiry. “What kind of dancing are we talking about here?”  
  
Erviel shrugs. “Any kind. I don’t know. Not Corellian cheek-step, I promise.”  
  
“Do I even _want_ to know what that dance is about?”  
  
“No.” She laughs. “It’s a lot of butt-wiggling, basically.”  
  
“ _Stars_ .” He shakes his head and downs his drink. “That’s not what I signed up for.”  
  
“I was thinking more like this,” Erviel says and takes his glass to put it on a nearby table where she also places her own. Then her arms come around his waist, one hand on his hip, the other one resting on his shoulder. For a second or two, they just stand like that, looking at each other.  
  
Aric mirrors her position, sliding one arm around her waist to press her closer and the other one travels up, hand cradling the back of her head. It’s one of those mildly possessive, dominant things he does that hits _just_ the right spot in her, shooting sparks of _want_ deep into her belly.    
  
“So some kind of human mating dance, then?” he asks and his voice is low and dark.  
  
“Uh huh.”  
  
She lets the hand on his shoulder scout the outlines of his upper body, her thumb slowly running over thick fur and fine clothing that has that faint scent of being brand _new_ , a clean feel under her touch. It’s such a sharp contrast to what they’re usually wearing - durasteel and under armor, fifteen layers of dirt and sweat and sand - and reminds her vividly of their wedding ceremony. One of the few occasions when they’ve been free and unbound and off duty. It had led to many memorable situations - and only half of them, if that, make for good stories to share with others.  
  
He shifts position a little, allowing one of his thighs to press against one of hers. She draws a sharp breath. Still a perfectly ordinary dance position, she hopes. It doesn’t _feel_ that way but looking around them, she sees others doing exactly this.  
  
“Right,” Aric says, his mouth closing in on hers while he squeezes her hip, gentle but firm. When one of them move, the other follows; she steps to the left and his hand runs over her back, she steps to the right and her leg touches his crotch, making him clench his jaw. They’re still horrible at foreplay. He had called them out on it once, back on the fleet when they had several hours on their hands and still fucked each other on the floor. It brings a faint smile to her lips now, as she presses them gently to his cheek.  
  
Okay, Erviel thinks, maybe people aren’t doing _exactly_ this around them. But close enough.  
  
The music is still slow, a soft beat that falls in the great chamber and she moves in time with it, or tries to. Her legs rub against his when she does, their stomachs touching. Aric grinds his teeth and tilts his head back; she leans in even closer then, pressing a quick kiss to the line of his jaw.  
  
“Restroom in ten?” she whispers.  
  
“Five,” he groans back and she giggles as she lets him go, smoothing out the crinkles on her suit with one slightly unsteady hand.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
The restroom facilities aren’t as magnificent as the rest of the place but it’s not far off, Aric decides as he waits, impatiently, for his wife to show up. He’s got no complaints about them, at any rate.  
  
She’s taking her time and he hopes it’s deliberate - whenever she’s in possession of the patience required which frankly isn’t very often, she _does_ love to make him wait, tease him with promises and delay them with a grin on her face - and not the result of someone having recognized her and wanted a chat or a favor. The brass are vultures sometimes and politicians are ten times worse.  
  
He sighs to himself, leaning his head against the cool tiles and summoning the image of Erviel in her uniform before his eyes. Those damn _legs_ , he thinks. Strong, long legs that just seem to never _end_ and the curve of her back and hips underneath.  
  
“Sorry,” she says when she arrives, finally. “Got held up by a few officers-”  
  
“Don’t really care.” Aric cuts her off, the sight of her is even better than his mental image and he can’t stop himself from grabbing her waist and pulling her into his arms.  
  
She makes a muffled, decidedly _pleased_ sound. “I see.”  
  
One of her hands immediately reaches for his belt, the other one already caressing him through the fabric of his ridiculously uncomfortable pants. He tries to protest, tries to tell her he won’t last long if she plans on continuing in that direction but the she gets to her knees in front of him and all plans go out of his head with a muffled groan.  
  
Erviel asks something he doesn’t catch and then her mouth closes around him, hot and wet and tight and Aric slumps the back of his head against the wall, hands grabbing hold of her hair, her shoulder, anything he can reach.  
  
The noises, he thinks incoherently. It’s always the damn _noises_ \- her breathing, that thick, filthy sound of his cock going in and out of her mouth - that undo him. Over and over. If he lives to a hundred and fifty, he’ll never tire of this. Of her. Of _them_ .  
  
He’d like to drag it out, delay it all, would like to fuck her properly and patiently but there will be time for that later in their hotel room with clean sheets and comfortable beds because right now, he thinks and looks down at her, he’s beyond self-control and just---  
  
Erviel stops suddenly, lets go of his cock and starts kissing a path up towards his stomach, wet lips on his fur, fingers reaching underneath his shirt. A shudder runs through him when she scrapes her blunt nails along the sides of his body. Aric reaches for her again, pulling her in for a kiss. Weird now to think there was a time when he didn’t know instinctively what she wants, when he wasn’t able to map her out in a dark room, pinpoint all of her body’s crooks and turns. This blasted woman is all he remembers now and all he wants and her teeth drag along his lips when they kiss, drawing blood.  
  
“I _love_ you,” he tells her, figuring he can’t say it often enough.  
  
“I’ve noticed,” she grins, one hand around his cock again; with the other she undoes her own pants and takes him inside her.  
  
She’s so fucking wet that he moans, helplessly, with his mouth on her throat, her face, the planes of her collarbones and shoulders. When he starts moving, she rocks her hips and closes her eyes, throwing her head back in a way that renders him even more useless. Her right leg locks around him, his hands grab hold of her ass and she hisses through gritted teeth when he picks up the pace.  
  
He’s the first one to come but she’s not far behind, her chest rubbing against his as she rides out the last of her orgasm while Aric exhales, his forehead resting in the crook of her neck.  
  
“We don’t attend nearly enough of these parties,” she says, voice still shaky.  
  
Aric laughs. “Damn right we don’t.”


	2. Ghosts

  
He waits for her at Carrick station for as long as he can. For as long as the people in charge calculate and speculate it might possibly take for stray survivor pods to be located. Then he doubles that time, tells himself he’ll damn well triple it, that he’ll linger for as long as it takes. That’s what they have promised each other after all, that’s what you do in his situation, that’s who he _is_ . He’s already left her behind once. He can barely endure the idea of leaving again, only to find out later that she’s been here, looking for him.  
  
Then there are scattered attacks on Republic territory out in the Outer Rim, followed by more organised ones and he’s called back to duty - _dragged_ back into it. For a brief moment he considers leaving the military, considers going rogue, undercover, making himself an independent fighter answering to no one.  
  
The massive station is so tightly packed with people back then, so crowded and loud and Aric wonders how anyone can ever find what they’re looking for with such commotion. Wonders - though he never says these things out loud, doesn’t even pronounce them to himself in his own head - how he’ll be able to spot her among all these poor souls, running back and forth to carry out objectives or pick up some news.  
  
Garza sends him condolences - unofficial ones, of course, she’s being stripped of all rank and file - and he wants to throw his holopad out in deep space.  
  
“She’s gone,” Dorne tells him, voice kind but matter-of-factly and that crisp Imp accent that feels like a blow to his gut right now. He tells himself it’s ridiculous, the Imps didn’t blow that starship out of the sky, they even lost one of their finest warlords. He tells himself a lot of reasonable things that just don’t _stick_ .  “I’m sorry, Jorgan,” she adds, softly.  
  
Others tell him the same thing in various tones and phrasings.  
  
_It’s been too long without a sign._  
  
_I’m sure she’d contact you first thing if she - if there’s - I’m so sorry._  
  
_Both the Republic and the Empire are out there looking, there’s nothing else we can do._  
  
_There’s a great counsellor over at the Rep base in Coruscant.  If you want his number-_  
  
He takes their advice and listens to their comments with a curt nod and a _respectfully disagree, sir_ but there’s no respect left in his body. He knows better. The only thing that remains is bitter determination.  
  
However long it takes him, he will find her. Whatever has been done to her, he owe her that much.  
  
Aric spots her in one of the hangars just as he’s been convinced to leave for one of the Republic’s new bases of operation on Corellia. That dark hair, firmly pulled back into a ponytail; the mismatched, outdated civ clothes Erviel wears on the rare occasions she’s actually off duty long enough to bother getting out of the many forms of military casual wear she appears to have acquired over the years; the confident walk, quick steps like heartbeats on the floor.  
  
He reaches her, nearly shouting her name, but before he has done it she’s turned around.  
  
It’s not her.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
The cantina on Dantooine is ridiculously warm even for a cantina on Dantooine during a heat spell and Aric ought to _sleep_ . The lack of rest is a presence in his body at this point: his back is stiff, his shoulders tense and he’s lost most of his appetite along with every last scrap of his patience.  
  
“Did you hear about the latest council meeting?” a human woman seated across the large table where he also sits asks her companion - a Cathar who looks like she might be a Jedi.  
  
“I did. It’s downhill from here.”  
  
“Stars, don’t _say_ that.”  
  
Aric glares at the bottom of his drink with that lurching sense of dread at the thought of what the two women are discussing. The downfall of the Galactic Republic, a downfall not caused by war or annihilation but the slow dark grind they witness now. The kind Aric had first sensed on Ord Mantell and had confirmed on Rishi; the kind that’s rotting their organisations and structures from the inside, decaying them like equipment left outside in rain and thunder.  
  
He shakes his head. Sycophants, tyrants and damned bureaucrats - that’s what’s it’s about now, these are the people that have pushed themselves to the front lines, speaking for the rest of them and breeding traitors and collaborators left and right.  
  
_Right_ . He pushes himself up from his chair. Time to leave.  
  
Then he sees her - a mere shadow at first, a tall woman entering the cantina and walking straight up to the jukebox, pushing a button on it. Erviel does that, too, whenever they’re out for drinks. It’s like she’s decided in advance that the music won’t suit her, or that she considers her own arrival reason enough to mix it up. Aric has always found it odd, a quirky little habit that has stayed with him.  
  
The woman orders something, gesticulating more than Erviel would, perhaps but these things can change. Her hair’s shorter, her neck different. And when she turns around he notices that the lines in her face are much more prominent.  
  
It’s not her.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
The air smells of rifles and blood on Balmorra, like it did last time they were there.  
  
This time it’s different: a change of enemy, a change of pace, almost as if the ground beneath their feet has changed, too.  
  
He sees her dead in a trench, helmet torn off, her body broken and twisted but the armour - the white and blue durasteel full of upgrades and specializations, the suit of armour she’s been perfecting ever since Ord Mantell and can talk about for hours if given the chance - is still somewhat intact. Aric freezes mid-step.  
  
Behind him Forex stops, too.  
  
His pulse thunders in his ears and at the back of his throat; when he swallows, the taste of iron overwhelms him. Once, on Voss, they had watched soldiers and their commanding officers lose their minds and roam like ghouls with blasters and Aric had promised her - and himself- that he’d never let her go down like that. _Not on my watch_ . Training and experience and _reason_ tell him he can’t prevent her death, nobody can or should have that power, but part of him refuses to accept that. She is his wife and he has sworn to stand by her and guard her for the rest of their lives but here he is and she isn’t.  
  
She _isn’t_ .  
  
“Sir?” Forex asks, lowering his arms. “Sir, what’s the matter?”  
  
There is a hole in the galaxy, in _him_ , an echo that keeps him awake and alive and waiting, constantly _waiting_ for something that appears a little more impossible for every passing day.  
  
He doesn’t answer that.  
  
“Let’s take five,” he says instead, kneeling on the ground beside the corpse.  
  
Human woman, about forty years, give or take. Dark hair, pretty face, brown eyes that no longer sees. Aric takes a deep, ragged breath and closes them. He hasn’t been this grateful in years - three years and two months, to be exact - and his relief is a shudder in him, a violent blow through his system. Exhaling, he averts himself from the scene, _shaking_ .    
  
It’s not her.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
Five years and she’s waiting for him in every spaceport, at every hangar; he sees her in restaurants and battlefields and out there in the most remote, _unlikely_ areas he visits.    
  
Every time it does something to him: a stitch inside, a hollow sound, a raw sort of grief that never heals because it’s never put to rest, the wound always open.  
  
It’s never her.  
  
There are days when he nearly wishes it would be.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
It feels like she has slept for hours but when Erviel wakes - with a jolt, hands scrambling over blankets and nearby equipment, her body startling itself awake from nearly every sleep session since she was rescued - the dusk outside the tent tells a different story. Lana would probably want to know about her erratic sleep patterns, she thinks, sitting up and tucking her legs underneath her on the bedroll. If nothing else, Lana would likely have a pragmatic calming technique or two to share.  
  
But it’s not Lana who’s in the tent with her down here on Zakuul, it’s Aric.  
  
Aric who’s seemingly asleep, half-dressed from their reunion earlier - a feverish, frantic sort of reunion, claws and teeth and bodies pressed so hard together that Erviel expects bruises.  
  
He had looked exhausted when she first spotted him down in the swampy jungle - exhausted and _composed_ in a stern, tight way that had twisted in her chest because she knows what that kind of composure is and what it covers and five years is such a _long_ time. They just married in her memory but he’s already had time to be a widower, mourn her and move on. Has he moved on? It doesn’t feel like he has, he doesn’t touch her like he has forgotten, but then again, how in the stars would you cope otherwise? She can barely imagine what she would have felt in his position,  how she would have reacted and whenever she tries to fathom it, the depths of grief threaten to swallow her and push her into the same darkness that appears to have consumed so much else while she was gone.  
  
The gap in time is a restless little beat in her veins, a drumming. Probably why she sleeps so badly. Her body tries its best to get her up to speed, keep her awake, push her forward. And besides, what has she done for the past five years if not rested.  
  
When she reaches for her holopad that’s been sloppily thrown by the side of the bedroll, Aric stirs beside her and the moment her screen lights up he snaps awake. He jerks upright, all soldier instincts and frayed nerves and Erviel holds her hands where he can see them, saying his name. Inches away from attacking, arms raised and ready, he calms down.  
  
“It’s just me,” she says quietly. “I can’t sleep.”  
  
There’s a sound, a deep exhale and then a sigh.  
  
“Shit- sorry about that.”  
  
“Not a problem, Aric.”  
  
He pulls himself up to a sitting position, leaning back on his hands.  
  
“For a moment there I forgot you’re back,” he says, slowly. “It’s a lot to take in.”  
  
“Yeah.” She puts down her holopad again, watching him instead. “For me, too.”  
  
The faint light from camp falls in thin stripes through the opening of the tent, accompanied by that ever-comforting sound of a squad doing their daily duties. I’ve missed this, she thinks though it hasn’t been gone. She’s been away but nothing else has. The galaxy has rotated without her.  
  
“I’ve missed you,” she says, instead.  
  
Aric scratches the back of his head, running a hand from his forehead and back. He looks like he’s considering something, running a few different parameters through his mind.  
  
“I saw you everywhere.” His voice is low, rough. There won’t be any long explanation about this, Erviel knows her husband well enough to know that. “Wherever we went. For years. Kept thinking it was you.”  
  
“Aric-”  
  
“You alright?” The ferocity in his voice fades in a heartbeat, replaced by a concern that makes her want to cry. “Didn’t want to ask before. What did they _do_ to you?”  
  
_Nothing_ , she wants to say but that’s not true and she doesn’t want to lie, not to him. Doesn’t want to tell him the truth either, not their first night together in five years. The voice in her head, the force in her body, all the _impossible_ things that she’s seen and breathed since Lana and Koth saved her ass and dragged her into machinations that seem so damn powerful that she can’t even begin to wrap her head around it.  
  
“I wish I knew,” she answers him instead. “I haven’t had time to look for explanations.”  
  
“Whatever they’ve done, they’ll pay for it.” It’s a growl more than anything else and it hits her with a stitch of pain followed by a shared fury. They _will_ pay. For everything that’s been taken from them, everything that has been and is still being done to them. All of them. To the galaxy.  
  
Erviel leans her head against her husband’s shoulder, sinking into the touch. His arm comes around her, holding her to him and for a while they just sit there, side by side, breathing. _This more than anything else_ , she thinks, _this is what I’ve longed for._ Quiet time. Together.  
  
“Can’t believe how much I’ve missed out on,” she says eventually.  
  
Aric sighs again. “Most of it hasn’t exactly been worth watching.”  
  
That part hits her, every single time she talks about it or someone mentions it: the state of the galaxy she woke up in. While the one she last recalls hadn’t been rose-tinted clouds and sunshine either, this one has terrors lurking around every corner. Real, practical terrors such as blockades and oppression, impossible punishments and uneasy cease-fire. A cold, harsh war with no winners apart from the Eternal Empire.  
  
Erviel slumps forward, stifling a groan. Aric’s hands move to her neck, as if no time at all has passed between then and now, and everything they do is merely a continuation of what they were doing before she starship fell and she was captured. The threads they had begun still there, waiting to be picked up once more. It’s comforting but she knows that it’s not that simple, not at the heart of it.  
  
Tonight isn’t the time for complexities, though.  
  
“No tyrant can be forever,” she says, looking at the small opening in the tent as Aric’s thumb presses against sore muscles. She can hear the soldiers outside, switching up the schedule for night watch. _You cover for me and I’ll pass you every chocolate bar I come across for the rest of the year._ She remembers it well, the bargaining and dealing. “I refuse to believe that.”  
  
Aric sits quiet beside her for a little while.  
  
“I’m afraid this is deeper than that,” he says. “It’s not about a few individuals. It’s the whole system that’s been corrupted. What’s left of the Republic if everything it used to stand for is gone?”  
  
“We are.”  
  
He shakes his head, whether it’s in disbelief or disagreement, she can’t tell. “You honestly believe that?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Right.” He sounds disappointed; she knows he is.  
  
“But I haven’t been through all this messed up shit just to lose everything I care about,” she says and it’s the most honest thing she’s admitted in what feels like an eternity. “Even if I can’t win, I’m going to fight like a damn rancor.”  
  
“Fair enough.” His voice is a mix of amusement and exhaustion and she leans her head against his; he pulls her into an embrace and then back down on the ground.


	3. For the fallen

  
  
  
He stands with his back turned against her, his hands holding on to the metal bars of the rails up on the observation points in the hangar.    
  
It’s one of Erviel’s favourite places in their headquarters - the farthest spot with the view of lush endless vegetation ahead and that small winding path leading up to more or less secluded areas where she’s headed plenty of times recently in Aric’s company.  _ Fresh air _ , they’ve called it and returned half-grinning with sweaty palms. They’re fooling no one but that’s hardly the point.    
  
Today it’s not for the view they stand there.    
  
Erviel doesn’t speak, waits for him to broach the subject they both know he’ll want to discuss.    
  
“Would it have made a difference if we’d gone to visit my family?” he asks, eventually, dragging it out like someone who’s pulling the wraps off an injury. That’s what it  _ is _ , she realizes that. Realized it even as she made the deal, Aric’s face surfacing before her eyes as she sat in the shuttle back, thinking and rethinking the explanations and motivations.    
  
She has every right; it doesn’t make it  _ right _ .    
  
“I don’t know,” she answers him, honestly. “I don’t think so.”   
  
“I keep thinking about it.” he shakes his head. “If you had seen what the Mandalorians did to my people. If you had-    
  
The vast hangar seems so very quiet when he falls silent, despite all the noises around them. Erviel walks up to him but remains a few steps away. The distance now is his to close or increase and every part of her chest  _ aches  _ but she owes him this much. More, probably, though they can’t really afford to keep track with everything that’s going on.   
  
“I would have made the same decision, Aric. It’s not about that.”   
  
When she drops the words, something falls with them. A weight. A burden.    
  
“Yeah.” He nods solemnly. And he’s so damn  _ reasonable  _ about it that it tears her apart, so much logic and pragmatism and rational parameters running across every choice they ever make but they’re both made of flesh and blood and that’s what flares up in his eyes when they meet hers, that’s what simmers below the carefully chosen words they exchange. “I know.”    


“I’m sorry,” she says though that’s not entirely true.   
  
Part of her  _ is  _ sorry - the part that married a Cathar and swore his oaths because she doesn’t believe in anything except the military strongly enough to have oaths of her own - but that is drowned by all the other part of her that are steeped in codes and protocols and strategy.   
  
And Aric, she knows, is made of the same stuff.    
  
“Yeah, don’t be.” He straightens up, squares his shoulders and turns towards her. “You shouldn’t be. Just don’t make me have a drink with Cadera sometime soon.”   
  
Erviel can’t help but smile a little at that. “You have my word.”   
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Months later at the same spot but her hands curled around the metal this time, the bars already damp and warm in her palms. She cradles then, lets them go and repeats. It’s like counting. A quiet song, a beat for the lost.    
  
“I brought you some caf.”    
  
Vette stands behind her suddenly, uncertainty in her entire posture and Erviel wishes she had something comforting to tell her, had something valuable to offer. But she hasn’t, so she just turns around and nods. A commander to her troops but hardly more than that. Not tonight.  _ You don’t have to be  _ she tries to convince herself but her inner superior officer is too weak these days, half-buried with her past somewhere _.  _ The Alliance has different needs altogether and damn it if she can properly figure those out.  __   
  
“Thank you, Vette.”   
  
“I just… what happened before, with Vaylin-”   
  
“Let’s discuss that another time.” Erviel can’t hold out the strict tone entirely, hears it snap open a little bit right at the end. Vette, she supposes based on what little interaction they’ve had, won’t  _ mind _ . “Please.”    
  
The silence that follows is tense but ends quickly.    
  
“Right.” Vette clears her throat. “Right, I just... I can’t believe I’m alive. I thought for sure I was going to die out there and I didn’t and that’s all because of you.”   
  
“Not just-”   
  
“No, sorry. I just wanted to say thank you, I suppose.”   
  
“There’s no need. Really.”   
  
Both of them fall silent again, retreating into the hollow void of this entire mission, this absurd damn existence that she woke up to and almost wishes she hadn’t. When they woke her up she had raged. Raged, raged, raged like a caged animal intent on revenge on her masters. There had been no time for wallowing, no moments of doubt. Now briefly and for the first time - and it feels like a stab wound to even acknowledge the notion - she wishes she hadn’t.    
  
“Right,” Vette says again and a few seconds later Erviel can hear her footsteps fade away. The mug of caf remains on a crate nearby.    
  
Erviel grabs it but doesn’t drink, merely holds it for a while and puts it down again. She folds her arms and stares down at the hangar and then outside.    
  
The nature below still looks untouched, unscathed despite their settlement here. It seems jarring somehow that something that breeds so much war looks so peaceful.    
  
“Sir.” Aric’s voice now, approaching fast. “ _ Erviel _ .”   
  
She turns around and he takes a step closer, surveying their surroundings, before he takes her in his arms. Old habits are hard to break. In this brave new world they can show public displays of affection much more readily but part of her, at least, always holds back. There are reasons, perhaps, but whatever those are, she isn’t particularly interested in wading through them right now.    
  
Aric says nothing, just holds her; she finally lets out a deep, ragged breath. It dances between them for a fraction of a second before it vanishes and Erviel groans instead, resting her forehead against Aric’s chest.    
  
“I wish I smoked. Or did spice. Or fucking...  _ anything _ .” She shakes her head in his embrace, her hair rubs against the fabric of his casual shirt and if this had been any other day, after any other battle, she knows he would have enjoyed untangling her messy helmet hair. Smoothing it out gently across her scalp, working on knots and occasionally dragging a claw along the line of her neck. After a long day, that’s pure bliss. But this isn’t and neither of them move an inch.    
  
“Agreed,” Aric says, his voice a low rumble.    
  
“Such a waste.”    
  
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”   
  
Her right shoulder still aches from being beaten to the ground, she realises when she attempts to shrug. “You don’t have to be.”    
  
It hadn’t even been a battle, Cadera hadn’t fallen to an enemy on the battlefield, he had been slaughtered and the difference hammers behind her heart.    
  
On repeat in her head, the same scene plays; she had acted on instinct - always trust your gut, you can afford it, Boldry - and Vette had been outnumbered whereas Cadera is a Mandalorian, born to fight.    
  
_ Was _ .    
  
And at the same time, there’s twisted relief in her body, a truth that spins and jolts inside when she stands here now, holding on to her husband for dear life.    
  
_ It wasn’t you.  _ __   
__   
_ It wasn’t  _ you _.  _ __   
__   
Then darker, like a hoarse gasp, a shudder through her system:  __   
__   
__ One day it will be.    
  
There are no proper words for that sentiment, it has no suitable shape. Erviel lets her lips brush across the line of Aric’s neck for as long as she dares, lets her hands grab the back of his head. His hands are firmly planted on her hips, the small of her back.     
  
They just stand like that, immovable creatures in the dusk, holding on to whatever shapes that can be seen in the light from the stars.    
  



End file.
